The Last Airbender
It's something that the producers who greenlighted this mess should have taken to heart. Avatar the cartoon was a vivid, colorful, exciting, funny, and charming fantasy adventure that was full of life. The live action The Last Airbender (they had to drop the "Avatar" part of the title, due to a little James Cameron movie from last year) is murky, joyless, and painfully inept. It is yet another misfire from writer-director M Night Shyamalan, a filmmaker whose fall from the A-List has probably been the most spectacular of any celebrity this past decade. It's amazing how much he's missed the point. The TV show had a sense of fun and humor, mixed in with human drama and action. The live action counterparts of the characters are so drab and monotone, they make Bella and Edward from Twilight look like the life of the party. There is not a single spark of life to be found here, and no amount of big budget special effects (which are often downgraded by the film's muddy look) can hide this fact.
Let's get this jumbled mess of a plot out of the way. The film is set in a distant world where there are four nations. Each nation holds the ability to manipulate or "bend" the powers of nature - Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. As the film opens, the Fire Nation has conquered most of the world for reasons never explored. Why does the ruler of the Fire Nation hope to achieve world domination in the first place? Does he have some grand scheme of uniting the world, or is he just a jerk? We spend so little time with him, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that two teenagers from the Waterbending nation, a brother and sister named Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone from the Twilight films), stumble upon a child encased in a block of ice. They end up freeing the boy, who turns out to be Aang (newcomer Noah Ringer), who just might be the Avatar - the one person in the world who holds knowledge of bending all four elements. He's someone who is reborn into a different person each time, and is predicted to bring the nations together against the kingdom of Fire.
Fortunately, Aang wasn't alone in that block of ice. He also has his faithful animal companion, Appa, who kind of looks like a water buffalo crossed with a beaver. The kids quickly learn that the creature can fly, which is handy for the heroes, and less fortunate for us the audience. Whenever Appa is in flight, it's hard to stifle a laugh, since it looks suspiciously like a third rate Falcor the Luck Dragon from The Neverending Story. They fly around the world, visiting various villages that are being oppressed by the Fire Nation. Katara and Sokka show the villagers that they have the Avatar, and this inspires the people to fight back with their own bending powers. Why they couldn't do this before the Avatar showed up, I don't know. The Earthbenders act like they're helpless under the power of the Fire Nation, but they seem to be able to hold their own in a fight.
All this flying around naturally attracts the attention of the Fire Nation, especially the exiled Prince Zuko (Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire), who wants to win respect in his father's eyes by capturing the Avatar himself. He pouts and groans a lot about how no one in the Fire Nation respects him. But his defining moments are the scenes where he starts explaining his own backstory for no reason other than to clue the audience in. The entire screenplay is like this. I understand it must have been hard for Shyamalan to cram some 24 episodes worth of story into a 100 minute movie, but he keeps on awkwardly inserting dull exposition and an off camera narrator so obvious, she keeps on describing what we're looking at, almost as if she is narrating for the visually handicapped. The characters here are not allowed to have a single human emotion or thought. Their dialogue exists solely to explain or to move the plot along. Poor Sokka is not even allowed to fall in love properly. As soon as he lays eyes on his future love interest, Princess Yue (Seychelle Gabriel), the narrator chimes in, explaining his feelings, and the next time we see them, they're sharing longing glances.
The Last Airbender is drab in just about every aspect you could think of - Storytelling, plot coherency, character development, dialogue, performances, and especially visuals. The filmmakers made the odd decision to shoot much of the movie at night or in dark areas. An even odder decision was made by the studio, who decided to convert the movie into 3D hastily and without any reason. Wearing the glasses make the dark images almost indecipherable at times. The movie does not even really use any 3D effects to begin with, so it's once again a scam to add a couple extra dollars to the ticket price. I already touched on this fact with Toy Story 3 (which I enjoyed), but it bears repeating - This is plain corporate greed at its worse, and until audiences start wising up, it's not going to go away.
As the movie dragged on, I found myself grasping for any positive signs that might have slipped into the film, much like a drowning man will pray for a flotation device. But there is nothing on the screen that shows any thought was put into this film. Even the casting is downright mystifying, with Asian characters being played by white actors. To add insult to injury, they're not even good actors. A lot of scenes leave the uncanny impression that the actors are reading off of cue cards. This leaves us to put up with heroes who are bland, and villains who don't have the slightest idea on how to display menace. The lead members of the Fire Nation should be cold and calculating, but they seem rather muted and wooden. Some of the actors who show up have been good in other things, but they are given no favors with Shyamalan's aimless direction.
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